Employee Resource Groups: Build Belonging and Leadership

Employee resource groups can give people a meaningful community at work, but their value does not stop at connection. When an ERG has a clear purpose, active sponsorship, accessible participation, and a reliable path from ideas to action, it can strengthen belonging while helping employees practice leadership, improve inclusion, and engage in more constructive dialogue.

Explore Aaron Golub's keynote and workshop topics for practical ways to connect inclusion, leadership, resilience, and team performance.

What are employee resource groups?

Employee resource groups, often called ERGs or business resource groups, are voluntary, employee-led communities organized around a shared identity, experience, interest, or purpose. Members may gather for peer connection, professional development, education, advocacy, mentoring, or community-building. Many ERGs also advise leaders and People teams on policies, practices, and workplace experiences that affect their members.

The exact structure varies by organization. Some groups are open to allies as well as people who share the group's identity. Some are organized globally, while others serve a particular business unit or location. The strongest design is not one universal model. It is the model that makes the group's purpose, authority, support, and limits clear to everyone involved.

SHRM describes employee resource groups as employee-led groups made up of colleagues with shared experiences. That definition is a useful starting point, but an ERG becomes more useful when the organization also answers a practical question: what will this group be able to influence, and how will members know that their input was heard?

Why employee resource groups matter to belonging and leadership

Belonging is built through repeated experiences of being welcomed, respected, heard, and able to contribute. An ERG can create a setting where employees find peers, share perspective, and develop the confidence to participate more fully in the wider organization. It can also give leaders a closer view of how policies and everyday habits are experienced by employees.

That potential depends on how the ERG operates. A group that is asked to host occasional events without a budget, sponsor, or decision pathway may create moments of connection but struggle to sustain momentum. A group with a defined role can become both a community and a practical learning environment.

• Belonging: Members can build relationships with people who understand aspects of their experience and with colleagues who want to learn as allies.
• Leadership development: Members can practice facilitation, communication, listening, project planning, conflict navigation, and influencing without relying on formal authority.
• Disability inclusion: A disability or access-focused ERG can help surface barriers, elevate lived experience, and support more thoughtful conversations about accessibility and participation.
• Constructive dialogue: ERGs can create structured opportunities to discuss difficult topics with shared norms, curiosity, and accountability.

These are possibilities, not automatic outcomes. The organization must create the conditions that allow the group to do more than carry unpaid responsibility for inclusion. That begins with a practical foundation.

Build the foundation before planning the event calendar

Many ERGs begin with energy and good intentions. Before that energy is consumed by a long list of events, define the operating model. A short charter can prevent confusion later and give both members and executives a shared reference point.

Define the group's purpose

Write one or two sentences that answer who the ERG serves, what it exists to do, and how it supports the organization's broader commitments. Avoid a purpose statement that tries to solve every culture issue at once. A focused purpose helps members make better choices about programming and helps leaders understand where the group adds value.

For example, a disability inclusion ERG might focus on community, education, and structured input on accessibility. It should not be expected to independently own every accommodation decision, legal question, or inclusion initiative. Clarity protects the group from scope creep and makes partnership with HR more productive.

Set a meaningful scope

Clarify whether the ERG is primarily a community, an advisory group, a professional development platform, or a combination of these roles. If the group will make recommendations, explain how those recommendations reach decision-makers, who responds, and what happens when the organization cannot act on them.

Secure resources

Resources may include an executive sponsor, a modest operating budget, meeting support, communications help, accessible technology, and protected time. Volunteer commitment matters, but a group should not depend on personal sacrifice to perform an organizational function. Resource decisions also communicate how seriously the organization takes the ERG's purpose.

Make participation accessible

Ask members what makes participation possible rather than guessing. Consider meeting times, remote access, captions, screen-reader compatibility, plain-language communication, sensory needs, caregiving responsibilities, and psychological safety. Accessibility is not a special add-on for one event. It is part of designing a group where people can contribute consistently.

A four-part framework for stronger employee resource groups

Use four questions to evaluate an existing ERG or design a new one: Is the purpose clear? Is sponsorship active? Can people participate? Does the group have follow-through?

1. Purpose: connect community to a clear contribution

Purpose gives members a reason to invest and gives partners a way to support the group without taking it over. Translate the purpose into a small set of priorities for the next planning period. Priorities might include peer connection, manager education, career development, accessibility feedback, or a specific listening effort.

Keep the list short enough to guide decisions. When a new event idea appears, ask whether it advances the purpose, serves members, or creates a useful bridge to the broader organization. If it does none of those things, it may not belong on the calendar.

2. Sponsorship: turn executive support into action

An executive sponsor is more than a senior person whose name appears on a slide. An active sponsor helps the ERG navigate organizational systems, brings its priorities into leadership conversations, removes barriers, and explains the group's value to peers. The sponsor should listen without becoming the voice of the group.

Define the relationship in practical terms. How often will the sponsor meet with ERG leaders? What decisions should the sponsor help unlock? How will the sponsor report back when a request cannot be approved? These questions turn a symbolic role into a working partnership.

3. Participation: make involvement possible for more people

ERG participation should not be limited to the most available employees or to people who already feel confident speaking in public. Offer more than one way to contribute, such as small-group discussions, asynchronous input, mentoring, project roles, or event support. Invite allies with clear expectations, and keep the experiences and leadership of the people the ERG serves at the center.

Watch for invisible barriers. If the same few members do all the planning, the group may be running on burnout rather than engagement. Rotate responsibilities, create a succession plan, and make it possible for someone to contribute without taking on an indefinite leadership load.

4. Follow-through: close the loop on ideas and concerns

Trust grows when people can see what happened after they shared an idea. Create a simple action log with the topic, owner, next step, date for review, and current status. Not every suggestion will become a policy change, but every serious recommendation should receive an understandable response.

Follow-through also applies to events. After a program, ask what participants learned, what they want to explore next, and what the organization should do differently. Then communicate which themes will become action and which will be held for later. A listening exercise without a response can create more frustration than a clear decision not to proceed.

How ERGs develop leadership in practice

Leadership development becomes more credible when it is built into the work of the ERG rather than treated as a separate lecture. Members can learn by leading a meeting, facilitating a sensitive conversation, presenting a recommendation, coordinating across functions, or handing off a project to the next leader.

Design roles that provide practice and support. A programming lead can learn to connect an event to a specific audience need. A communications lead can practice translating a complex topic into clear language. A chair or co-chair can learn how to set priorities, delegate, and make space for dissent. A liaison to HR or DEI can build skill in moving between employee experience and organizational process.

Pair responsibility with reflection. After a major meeting, ask what went well, what was difficult, who was not heard, and what the facilitator would change next time. This turns routine work into a repeatable leadership laboratory. It also helps emerging leaders build the self-awareness and emotional intelligence needed to lead across differences.

Succession planning is part of leadership development. Document key responsibilities, create a shadowing period, and avoid treating the outgoing chair as the only person who knows how the group works. A healthy transition protects continuity while giving new leaders permission to improve the model.

See Aaron Golub's speaking and consulting services for organizational programs that connect leadership, team building, resilience, and inclusion to practical action.

Use ERGs to advance disability inclusion, not just awareness

A disability-focused ERG can offer community and help an organization learn from the expertise of disabled employees. Its role should not be reduced to a single awareness month or to asking members to educate everyone else for free. Disability inclusion is stronger when the ERG has a defined relationship with HR, DEI, facilities, communications, recruiting, and senior leadership.

Start with listening. Invite members to identify barriers in the employee experience, while protecting privacy and avoiding any expectation that people disclose more than they want to share. Look at the systems around the issue, including how employees request accommodations, how meetings are designed, how internal content is delivered, and how managers receive guidance.

Use respectful language and make room for different perspectives. Disabled employees do not all have the same needs, and one person's experience should not be treated as a universal answer. The ERG can help the organization ask better questions, test assumptions, and involve the people most affected by a proposed change.

Aaron Golub's Thinking Differently About Disabilities topic is built around challenging assumptions, using differences as a source of insight, and developing more open and respectful dialogue. For an ERG, that kind of conversation is most useful when it leads to a specific next step, such as improving meeting practice, reviewing communications, or clarifying how employees can ask for support.

Facilitate constructive dialogue inside and outside the ERG

Belonging does not require every conversation to be comfortable. It does require a process that helps people stay engaged when a topic is sensitive or perspectives differ. Before a discussion, explain the purpose, the boundaries, and how participants can contribute. Do not promise that no one will feel challenged. Promise that the conversation will be handled with care.

Create working agreements

Useful agreements are specific enough to guide behavior. Participants might agree to listen to understand, speak from their own experience, avoid asking one person to represent a whole group, protect confidential stories, and address impact as well as intent. Explain how the facilitator will intervene when an agreement is not followed.

Ask questions that move beyond performance

Questions such as "What should we do differently?" and "Who may be affected by this decision?" move a conversation toward practice. Follow-up questions can separate a broad concern from a concrete example and identify what is within the group's control. The goal is not to win an argument. It is to improve understanding and decide what happens next.

Give disagreement a path forward

When disagreement appears, restate the issue without assigning motives. Identify what is agreed, what remains different, and what evidence or lived experience should inform the next step. Some conversations need more time, a smaller group, or support from an appropriate HR or DEI partner. Escalation should be a way to protect people and improve the process, not a shortcut around listening.

Partner with executives, HR, and DEI teams

An ERG is most effective when it has a clear place in the organization's operating system. The group should not be isolated from the teams responsible for policy, people processes, communications, learning, and leadership decisions. At the same time, institutional partners should not absorb the ERG's identity or make decisions on its behalf.

Put the partnership agreements in writing. A one-page operating guide can name roles, meeting cadence, decision routes, privacy expectations, and the process for reviewing recommendations. This reduces dependence on one relationship and makes the ERG easier to sustain through leadership changes.

Measure progress without reducing belonging to one number

Measurement should help the ERG learn and communicate, not turn belonging into a score that hides context. Choose a small set of indicators across activity, experience, and action.

• Activity: Are meetings, programs, and leadership transitions happening as planned?
• Participation: Who is able to join, contribute, lead, and return, and where are barriers appearing?
• Experience: What do members say about connection, inclusion, access, and psychological safety?
• Action: Which recommendations were accepted, adapted, declined, or referred, and were responses communicated?
• Learning: What did leaders and partners learn, and what practice will change as a result?

Do not promise a particular business outcome simply because an ERG has a strong attendance number. Use evidence to understand the group's health, then connect that learning to decisions the organization can actually make. The measure is useful when it leads to a better question or a clearer action.

Planning an ERG keynote, workshop, or leadership conversation? Connect with Aaron to discuss your audience, goals, and the kind of practical support that would fit your organization.

Employee resource groups FAQs

What do employee resource groups do?

Employee resource groups create community, support professional development, provide education, and give employees a structured way to share perspective with an organization. Depending on their charter, they may also advise leaders and People teams on policies, accessibility, communications, and workplace practices.

What are examples of employee resource groups?

Examples include groups focused on disability and accessibility, racial or ethnic identity, gender, LGBTQ+ inclusion, veterans, caregivers, parents, faith, early-career employees, or shared interests. The relevant question is not whether an organization has a long list of groups. It is whether each group has a clear purpose, responsible support, and a meaningful opportunity to contribute.

How can an executive sponsor support an ERG?

An executive sponsor can advocate for the group in leadership settings, help remove organizational barriers, connect ERG leaders with decision-makers, support resources, and close the loop when recommendations are accepted or declined. The sponsor should create access without speaking over the members the ERG serves.

How can an ERG improve disability inclusion?

A disability inclusion ERG can create community, identify barriers, advise on accessibility, support education, and help leaders engage in more respectful dialogue. It should partner with the relevant teams and protect member privacy. The ERG can inform organizational change, but it should not be expected to replace professional HR, legal, accessibility, or accommodation processes.

How do employee resource groups build leadership skills?

Members build leadership skills by facilitating meetings, coordinating programs, presenting recommendations, managing projects, resolving disagreements, mentoring peers, and planning succession. Reflection and feedback turn those responsibilities into intentional development rather than simply adding volunteer work.

Build the conditions for belonging

Employee resource groups are not a substitute for inclusive leadership, accessible systems, or accountable management. They are one way to bring community, lived experience, and practical learning into those systems. Give the group a clear purpose, active sponsorship, accessible ways to participate, and a dependable path from input to action. That is how an ERG can help people feel they belong while also helping an organization lead and work differently.

Schedule a conversation with Aaron Golub about a keynote, workshop, or tailored program for your organization.